Sin Offering: the Ruler and the Common Person
22 “‘When a ruler sins, and unwittingly does any one of all the things which Yahweh his God has commanded not to be done, and is guilty, 23 if his sin in which he has sinned is made known to him, he shall bring as his offering a goat, a male without defect. 24 He shall lay his hand on the head of the goat, and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering before Yahweh. It is a sin offering. 25 The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering. He shall pour out the rest of its blood at the base of the altar of burnt offering. 26 All its fat he shall burn on the altar, like the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings; and the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin, and he will be forgiven. 27 “‘If anyone of the common people sins unwittingly, in doing any of the things which Yahweh has commanded not to be done, and is guilty, 28 if his sin which he has sinned is made known to him, then he shall bring for his offering a goat, a female without defect, for his sin which he has sinned. 29 He shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering, and kill the sin offering in the place of burnt offering. 30 The priest shall take some of its blood with his finger, and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering; and the rest of its blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar. 31 All its fat he shall take away, like the fat is taken away from the sacrifice of peace offerings; and the priest shall burn it on the altar for a pleasant aroma to Yahweh; and the priest shall make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven. 32 “‘If he brings a lamb as his offering for a sin offering, he shall bring a female without defect. 33 He shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering, and kill it for a sin offering in the place where they kill the burnt offering. 34 The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering; and all the rest of its blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar. 35 He shall remove all its fat, like the fat of the lamb is removed from the sacrifice of peace offerings. The priest shall burn them on the altar, on the offerings of Yahweh made by fire. The priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin that he has sinned, and he will be forgiven.
A ruler brings a male goat and an ordinary person a female, and both receive the same sentence of forgiveness.
The ladder continues downward, and the two remaining cases are shorter because the procedure is now familiar.
When a ruler sins Leviticus 4:22, he brings a male goat. The wording of his case has one small difference from the priest's: he sins against what Yahweh his God has commanded. The possessive is added for a man whose position might tempt him to think the commandments belong to somebody else's department.
Then anyone of the common people Leviticus 4:27, who brings a female goat or a lamb — a cheaper animal than the ruler's, and cheaper again than the bull.
The graduation is the point of the whole chapter. What is required scales with what a person has and with what his position costs others. Nobody is priced out, and nobody at the top is let off lightly.
What does not change is the ritual core. In every case the offerer lays his hand on the animal's head and kills it himself Leviticus 4:29. In every case the priest handles the blood. In every case the fat is burned. And in every case the sentence at the end is identical: the priest shall make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven Leviticus 4:31 Leviticus 4:35.
The blood for these two goes only to the altar of burnt offering in the courtyard, not into the holy place. The reach of the remedy matches the reach of the damage, which is the same logic that sent the priest's blood inside the tent.
One phrase in the common person's case is worth marking, because it recurs and is easy to pass: if his sin which he has sinned is made known to him Leviticus 4:28.
The whole apparatus waits on that. A man cannot bring a sin offering for something he does not know about, so the system depends on discovery — on somebody noticing, or on the man's own conscience catching up. The offering is not automatic and the guilt does not lift on its own.
And for the ordinary Israelite the animal is a goat from his own flock, brought to a public door, killed by his own hand. There is nothing private about the arrangement, and nothing symbolic about the cost.
settled What this mark means